Celebs Toast James Franco at ‘Oz the Great and Powerful’ Party

There are high expectations for “Oz The Great and Powerful” when it hits theaters Friday, and a bevy of stars came out this week in New York to celebrate the film’s star, James Franco, at a special screening and after-party.

Guests included Billy Zane, Dylan McDermott and Padma Lakshmi at the event, hosted by Gucci & The Cinema Society. Franco looked sharp in a dark gray suit, while “Shameless” actress Emmy Rossum was fresh and ready for spring in a flowery Oscar de la Renta dress.

In the film, Franco plays Oz, a swindling circus magician from Kansas who is swept away to a colorful fantasy land that shares his name. There, he embarks on a mysterious journey to become the Great and Powerful Wizard of Oz. This is his fourth film with director Sam Raimi, who also directed the “Spiderman” trilogy. Franco stars alongside the sparkling trio of Michelle Williams, Rachel Weisz and Mila Kunis, who play three witches involved in a fiery battle over power of the Land of Oz. The cast also includes Zach Braff as a loveable flying-monkey sidekick who helps Oz navigate his wild journey.

After the screening, guests convened at the elegant new restaurant Harlow to discuss the film while snacking on ceviche, beef skewers, and salmon with Asian pear and sipping pink Grey Goose martinis. One question that was on guests’ minds was whether the new big-budget CGI movie did justice as a prequel to the classic, beloved “Wizard of Oz” film.

Actor Pablo Schreiber of “The Wire,” who caught the screening, approved, saying, “It shared a very common visual vocabulary, I felt, with the original film.”

Actor Stephen Baldwin said the film did a good job building on the original tale. “I really liked it a lot. I thought that it was smart to reinvent [the story] in the way that they did,” he said. “I’m a huge Sam Raimi fan.”

Amid the glamorous socialites at the scene, one young guest revealed that he got into the party by saying that he was a student in Franco’s UCLA film class. He didn’t get to chat up the man of the hour, however. “Yeah, I missed Franco,” he said of the actor, who left early after posing for photographers and being enveloped by other guests. “Maybe I’ll catch him another time.”